Puritan

WASHINGTON -- What is wrong with what presidential campaign adviser Dick Morris is alleged to have done with a $200-per-hour prostitute? Why did Mr. Morris feel that he had to resign after reports of his dealings with Sherry Rowlands became front-page news?I certainly hope no one will suggest that what he is alleged to have done was wrong. By what or whose standard? And even if someone were to acknowledge that such a standard exists, we can't impose a moral code on people, can we?Pluralistic standardsThat's because there are some (like Mr. Morris)

For the ultimate in lazy-but-prudent investing, there are ways to buy a single mutual fund, called a hybrid. That's it: one fund. These hybrid funds contain stocks and bonds and sometimes cash, all managed by a professional. Even the conservative hybrid funds have had respectable returns, averaging 10 percent annually over the past decade, said Paul B. Farrell, author of The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing. These hybrids come in different flavors. Here are two types: Balanced funds: These keep a prescribed balance between stocks and bonds - 60 percent in stocks and 40 percent in bonds, for example.

Washington. -- Morton Kondracke, a senior editor of The New Republic and a certified liberal, identified himself the other day as a ''prude.'' Not a puritan, but a prude. He said some things about today's society that urgently need to be said.2 James J. Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.

By Clarinda Harriss and By Clarinda Harriss,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | August 15, 1999

"T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life," by Lyndall Gordon. W. W. Norton. 721 pages. $35.Make no mistake: T. S. Eliot was an American, a New Englander and a Puritan. Lyndall Gordon's 1999 biography -- subsuming her separate books about his early and later life -- lays to rest several popular misconceptions about Eliot, including his complete morphing from American to Brit. Eliot the proper English gentleman was pure artifice.The real Eliot, more complex than any spatted Prufrock, created a double to play the lead in his life's performance.

AS THE Senate formally begins the impeachment trial of President Clinton, a re-reading of "The Scarlet Letter" might help lawmakers and the public put this neo-Puritan drama of our own time into perspective.After all, Mr. Clinton's impeachment by the House of Representatives seems straight out of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel, set in Puritan Boston 300 years ago.Since this affair has dominated our national discourse for a year, it's worth taking a look at how the Hawthorne classic contains timeless truths.

IT IS rumored that Kitty Kelley's next project is a demolition job on Prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh. If a Kelley "biography" of the consort of Queen Elizabeth II approximated Nancy Reagan's, the monarchy could be greatly damaged.Perhaps Kelley or her greedy emulators, beloved of the chattering classes in England and America, will find commercial inspiration to do a book on Philip in the extraordinary media coverage she received on a visit to London this week. Her book tops Britain's best-seller list.

For the ultimate in lazy-but-prudent investing, there are ways to buy a single mutual fund, called a hybrid. That's it: one fund. These hybrid funds contain stocks and bonds and sometimes cash, all managed by a professional. Even the conservative hybrid funds have had respectable returns, averaging 10 percent annually over the past decade, said Paul B. Farrell, author of The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing. These hybrids come in different flavors. Here are two types: Balanced funds: These keep a prescribed balance between stocks and bonds - 60 percent in stocks and 40 percent in bonds, for example.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Since even before the Plymouth colonists expressed their gratitude to the Almighty for seeing their little ship safely across the stormy North Atlantic from the Old World to the New, formal expressions of Thanksgiving have tended to involve looking back.There are both practical and psychological reasons for this. The practical reason is that it's impossible to be truly grateful for blessings which have yet to arrive. We may well anticipate them confidently if we have hope and faith, but we can't be grateful until they actually occur.

By Clarinda Harriss and By Clarinda Harriss,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | August 15, 1999

"T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life," by Lyndall Gordon. W. W. Norton. 721 pages. $35.Make no mistake: T. S. Eliot was an American, a New Englander and a Puritan. Lyndall Gordon's 1999 biography -- subsuming her separate books about his early and later life -- lays to rest several popular misconceptions about Eliot, including his complete morphing from American to Brit. Eliot the proper English gentleman was pure artifice.The real Eliot, more complex than any spatted Prufrock, created a double to play the lead in his life's performance.

Washington. -- When word reached the University of Chicago that a magazine published by Harvard students had ranked 300 universities in terms of the fun to be found there and had ranked Chicago 300th, a Chicago undergraduate, probably bundled up against the razor-like wind off the lake, jauntily said: ''Fun isn't linear.''His riposte had the wittiness, and the obliqueness, you expect from the school that expresses its intellectual brio in a song: ''Anything you can do, we can do meta.''If Chicago had not gone, almost ostentatiously, from being a football power -- long ago, under coach Alonzo Stagg -- to seeming to fancy itself too damned serious for such stuff, perhaps it would not have had to suffer so many suggestions that only the slightly weird would choose to enroll there.

By Dorothea Straus and Dorothea Straus,Special to the Sun | March 7, 1999

There are no fixed answers, nor any Utopias. The rules that govern the economy as well as those that dictate sexual mores are susceptible to periodic mutations. Therefore two disparate books, two contrasting voices protesting the status quo and recommending drastic change, can be linked despite their very different spheres."They were bran new people, in bran new houses in bran new quarters. Everything about them was spic and span new. And their furniture was new, all their friends were new -- their plate was new, their pictures were new, themselves were new -- in their establishment from hall chairs with new coat of arms, to the pianoforte [read technical improvements]

AS THE Senate formally begins the impeachment trial of President Clinton, a re-reading of "The Scarlet Letter" might help lawmakers and the public put this neo-Puritan drama of our own time into perspective.After all, Mr. Clinton's impeachment by the House of Representatives seems straight out of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel, set in Puritan Boston 300 years ago.Since this affair has dominated our national discourse for a year, it's worth taking a look at how the Hawthorne classic contains timeless truths.

By Dexter Filkins and Dexter Filkins,LOS ANGELES TIMES | November 4, 1998

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Hotel Intercontinental, gem of a ruined city, exudes a medieval charm.The lobby walls surrendered their photos and portraits to the Taliban religious police two years ago. The drinking and dancing that drew sultans and kings have been replaced by ice water and prayer. At night, the breeze wafts into the Pamir Supper Club through a hole made by a missile, the gap framing a city of twinkling lights and curfew calm."The Taliban took everything," says Sher Ahmed, the sad-eyed manager of food and beverages.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Since even before the Plymouth colonists expressed their gratitude to the Almighty for seeing their little ship safely across the stormy North Atlantic from the Old World to the New, formal expressions of Thanksgiving have tended to involve looking back.There are both practical and psychological reasons for this. The practical reason is that it's impossible to be truly grateful for blessings which have yet to arrive. We may well anticipate them confidently if we have hope and faith, but we can't be grateful until they actually occur.

&TC STEVE JONES, THE 22-year-old Maryland Institute, College of Art student whose "Fingers of Fear" sculpture was smashed by vandals earlier this month, says he was shocked, just shocked by the reaction his artwork provoked."

WASHINGTON -- What is wrong with what presidential campaign adviser Dick Morris is alleged to have done with a $200-per-hour prostitute? Why did Mr. Morris feel that he had to resign after reports of his dealings with Sherry Rowlands became front-page news?I certainly hope no one will suggest that what he is alleged to have done was wrong. By what or whose standard? And even if someone were to acknowledge that such a standard exists, we can't impose a moral code on people, can we?Pluralistic standardsThat's because there are some (like Mr. Morris)

&TC STEVE JONES, THE 22-year-old Maryland Institute, College of Art student whose "Fingers of Fear" sculpture was smashed by vandals earlier this month, says he was shocked, just shocked by the reaction his artwork provoked."

The Naval Academy plans to keep Greenbury Point, the 231-acre peninsula that holds the Navy's landmark communications towers, as a wildlife refuge after the towers are demolished. But plans for removing the towers have provoked ecological and historical concerns.Each summer, 15 to 20 pairs of osprey -- federally protected migratory birds -- nest in the towers."When they take down the towers, the osprey lose their nesting platforms," Allan Haury, president of the Maryland Ornithological Society, said yesterday.